


Sky Full of Song

by thekatthatbarks



Series: Shikasaku Week 2020 [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Day Eight, F/M, Fluff, Free day, Romance, ShikaSaku Week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekatthatbarks/pseuds/thekatthatbarks
Summary: Shikamaru had grown up with cautious tales of the Nara Forest. To stay away from rings of mushrooms and odd piles of rocks. But they were Nara Forest and he didn’t feel the foreboding air that the neighbors like to scream about when he crossed through the tree line.The forest was always calling out to him and he couldn’t help but listen to it. He could ignore it when Chouji or Ino came over to play in the fields just outside where the deer grazed. He could ignore it when he was laying his head down to sleep, a sloppy kiss pressed to his cheek from his parents.But most often, he couldn’t.He still listened to the tales. Shikamaru wasn’t paranoid but he also wasn’t stupid.Not that it mattered.She found him anyway.He should’ve known not to rest under the cherry blossom tree by the stream.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Nara Shikamaru
Series: Shikasaku Week 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679083
Comments: 6
Kudos: 147





	Sky Full of Song

Shikamaru had grown up with cautious tales of the Nara Forest. To stay away from rings of mushrooms and odd piles of rocks. But they were _Nara_ Forest and he didn’t feel the foreboding air that the neighbors like to scream about when he crossed through the tree line.

His mother would probably scold him later when he returned home with twigs in his hair and mud on his clothes, but he didn’t care that much. The forest was always calling out to him and he couldn’t help but listen to it. He could ignore it when Chouji or Ino came over to play in the fields just outside where the deer grazed. He could ignore it when he was laying his head down to sleep, a sloppy kiss pressed to his cheek from his parents.

But most often, he couldn’t.

He still listened to the tales. Shikamaru wasn’t paranoid but he also wasn’t stupid.

Not that it mattered.

She found him anyway.

He should’ve known not to rest under the cherry blossom tree by the stream.

She laid down beside him, her skin almost sparkling when the light hit it. Old deep red fabric clung to her skin, clad where it laid on her in an odd cut he hadn’t seen any other women wear. _Well, could he even call her a woman?_ Her long pink hair spread out across the grass below her and Shikamaru could swear he saw it seeping into the soil sometimes. Vines played at her feet, almost like the ground was caressing her. They appeared out of nowhere, no plants nearby had any vines.

Shikamaru shifted beside her, always feeling on edge when she took her time to speak.

She eventually turned her head towards him, her green eyes glistening. At first glance, they looked almost human, but then they seemed so deep like she had lived so long. He supposed she probably had.

“Tell me, child, are you ever going to do anything besides lie around?”

Her voice was soft, awed wonder lacing through it like she was still discovering the world. She was almost childlike sometimes, feeling like a fawn stumbling on new legs. But Shikamaru knew she was far from it.

He sighed. “If I’m so boring, why do you keep bothering me?”

“I did not say you were _boring_.” She rolled her eyes at him, a foreign accent slipping into her voice on the word _not_.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at her. “Then, what is it? Are you waiting for the right time to ask for my name?”

She laughed, airy and light as a breeze blew over them. She sat up and looked down at him. “I have no need for your name.”

Shikamaru rolled his eyes at her with all the bravery of an eight-year-old who didn’t know any better than to banter with a fae. “I’m not stupid.”

“I know.” She looked at him, a smirk on her lips.

Shikamaru didn’t reply, feeling his face warm for some reason. He hated when she looked at him like she knew him better than himself.

She sighed and then leaned towards him, an earthy scent filling his senses. “Why don’t you take a walk with me?”

Shikamaru stubbornly looked away from her. “I told you I won’t fall for any of your tricks.”

She pouted at him. “You play with those human children. Why not play with me?” She grinned and told him, “I can be quite fun too.”

Shikamaru shook his head and this time when she sighed, the leaves in the tree rustled. She stood up and turned from him. “Well, if you will not let me walk with you, then at least see the forest for yourself. There’s so much you’ve yet to see.” Her eyes fell over fish swimming in the stream nearby. “There is so much to appreciate.”

He asked her after finding his voice, his chest feeling tight for some reason with her sad smile, “Why?”

“I think it would like it,” she told him simply. Then, looked at him with a gentle smile. “It calls out for you, doesn’t it?”

He didn’t dare answer and looked back to the path home. A bird moved in the tree above him and when he looked back to her, she was gone.

***

Shikamaru was twelve when he finally accepted her offer for a walk. He’d already walked the forest hundreds of times and didn’t feel as cautious as he did when he was younger. He would know if she tried to lead him astray.

She didn’t.

“What’s troubling you?” She asked him after a bout of silence. She’d been telling him about the animals, talking about them like they were people she knew. He felt like he was supposed to think they were silly – _that other kids would_ – but he felt oddly appreciative of them. It made him feel different. He didn’t like it.

“You wouldn’t get it.” He kicked at a rock along their path.

She chuckled and admitted, “Probably not. But I am here to listen if you would like to speak about it.”

“I don’t like school,” he told her with a sigh, mostly curious about what her reply would be. “It’s boring. Dad and Mom nag me to do my work but I don’t see the point in it.”

She nodded along as he spoke, listening intently. He went on, “My grades are bad, and all my teachers call me lazy. But I’m not _dumb_.”

“You most certainly are not, child.” A smile graced her lips as she looked down at him. She, then, asked unsurely when he didn’t add anything else, “School is a _deciding factor_ for humans, is it not?”

He shrugged uneasily. Even a _fae_ had picked up on it. “I don’t want you to lecture me.”

She laughed. “I’ve no intention of doing so. I am only trying to understand why you think it’s pointless when your humans don’t.”

He sighed and looked down at his feet. “The whole point of school is to get _good grades_. No one even cares if you _learn_ anything from it. Then, those grades decide what _college_ you go to, which _then_ , decides what job you get. And that decides how much _money_ you make, what kind of life you can have. And then, you die.”

“That sounds horrible. Why on earth do humans spend their lives doing that?”

Shikamaru laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s just how the world works.”

“Not all worlds.”

He looked up at her to see her watching a fox that was walking near them. Shikamaru hadn’t even noticed it. She smiled at it and it went over to them to walk beside them like a loyal dog. The fox looked at him and Shikamaru felt strange as he met its eyes. It turned back to the path in front of them a second later and Shikamaru had to look away from it suddenly uncomfortable. He didn’t think animals normally looked at humans like that.

He stopped in the path and she looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. “Oh, are you wanting to go back already?”

Shikamaru nodded and she smiled at him. “Then, I hope to see you again soon.”

He turned back and didn’t have to look to know she’d disappeared.

***

“You don’t visit me as much as you used to.”

Shikamaru sighed but didn’t open his eyes. He heard a branch swing, her feet landing lightly beside him a second later. “I can’t. My high school is in the city and I picked up a part time job. I’m too busy to come to the forest like when I was a kid.”

“It misses you.” Her voice was near his ear, though he knew she wasn’t that close, sitting a few feet from him. She never got too close to him.

He shifted against the grass and told her, “I miss it too.”

She sighed and the wind whistled. A long time ago, he had stopped feeling surprised the forest seemed to react along with her. “You don’t even like _school_.” She said the word like it was a foreign object, bitter on her tongue.

Shikamaru felt himself smile and opened his eyes to see her frowning, her fingers digging into the ground. It was spring and petals were in her hair, moving with the wind but never falling to the ground. It was increasingly hard to not reach out for them.

“I don’t. But I can’t just _not_ go.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then decided against it. It was different to say the least, she rarely hesitated. She asked instead, “Do you find any happiness there?”

It was such an odd way to phrase it, but he supposed _she_ was odd. “Yeah, I like my friends and there’s a club I’m thinking about joining.”

She looked at him confused and repeated the word, “Club?”

He sat up and waved a hand. “It’s a group of people who get together for something. The one I like plays games, like shoji.”

She nodded and tried the word on her lips, “Shoji.”

He felt himself chuckle. “It’s a strategy game.”

“Like war.” She looked off to the side, her eyes distant. He felt something in his chest drop.

“It’s not – not like a _violent_ game.” He tried to explain but didn’t know what to say. Without thinking, he reached out for her arm. She turned to him in surprise and he took his hand back, feeling his skin flush. A warmth washed through him and he tried to shake it off, offering her a smile like he hadn’t just done something out of their normal. “What if I brought it out here one day? Would you play it with me?”

She watched him curiously, her eyes focused like she was seeing more than what was in front of her. After a minute, she told him with a smile, “I suppose it could be _fun_.”

He chuckled and she warned almost teasingly, “But don’t make it a habit of bringing human things into the forest.”

Shikamaru nodded and went to lay back on the grass. She joined him, closer than she normally did. He tried to not think about how it made his heart race.

He’d never told anyone about her. People would think he was crazy. Even the ones that believed him would give him fearful looks and avoid him when they saw him. It would scare his parents and friends.

They wouldn’t understand so he kept his mouth shut.

He knew now she wouldn’t ever hurt him. That what he had feared as a child was old folk tales.

No, he wasn’t scared of her. But he was becoming increasingly scared of himself. The longer he spoke with her, the more he wanted to stay in the forest. He could still hear it calling out to him and unlike when he was a child, he would sometimes sneak out of his window at night to slip into the tree line.

He felt _right_ here unlike he did anywhere else, which he knew was the _wrong_ feeling to have.

It was like he belonged here and Shikamaru tried to not think about how she always separated him from the other humans when she talked. He tried to not think about how he felt like he didn’t belong among them either.

***

“Going away,” she repeated the phrase as she walked into the stream beside him.

Shikamaru watched as the water rippled around her calves, her hair dipping into the water. It was shallow where she walked but he felt like it wouldn’t make a difference if she walked through the deeper parts. He imagined her walking across it, small waves wherever her feet touched. His chest felt tight and he turned his eyes away from her in the pretense of making sure he didn’t trip over any rocks.

“Yeah, I’m going away.”

“For how long?”

Shikamaru hesitated and didn’t answer the question. “I’ll come visit.”

Her mouth twisted and the current of the water sped up. Shikamaru stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans, gripping his fingers nervously. “I have to go to college and it’s far, so I’ll have to stay there when I’m going to classes. I can come to the forest during the summer.”

Her head whipped to him with wide eyes. “The _summer_?” Her voice had a trace of anger in it beneath the hurt that he found hard to ignore.

He swallowed and nodded. “Yeah.”

Her feet stopped in the water and she turned her body away from him. Shikamaru’s hands itched to reach out for her like he had that day, but he stubbornly kept them in his pockets. His shoes traced the edge of the riverbank, but he didn’t dare step in.

She didn’t look at him as she repeated her question from earlier. “For how long?”

“Four years.” He didn’t tell her about his plans to go to graduate school, feeling that it was a different bridge to cross when they got to it.

But she somehow knew, her voice sharp. “You’re lying to me.”

“Eight years,” he corrected. The words ripped from his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut, “I’m sorry.”

She nodded her forgiveness but didn’t speak for several moments. Shikamaru could hear the birds singing in the trees by them, could see a rabbit darting from bush to bush from the corner of his eye. But none of it could comfort him like she could.

He felt something tear at him when she finally spoke in a thick voice, her back still to him. “Please leave me for today.”

The words tightened around his heart like a noose and he took a step back. She’d never asked him of that before, always being the one to leave his side when he had to go back. He turned on his heel and took a few steps when she added hesitantly, “But can you come tomorrow?”

Shikamaru swallowed the lump in his throat before telling her, “Yes.”

***

He loved her. That much he knew to be true. These days he felt like there wasn’t much he knew at all, but he knew that. He’d always known that, felt it deep inside him like sap dripping from his bones. It choked him but only when he wasn’t in the forest. When he was with her, it felt like he could finally breathe.

He’d only been able to visit her a few more times that last summer before he had to leave. She’d been solemn the entire last day, but he hadn’t left her side until she urged him to go back, a threat spilling from her lips almost by accident that she would keep him if he didn’t. The way she tightened her lips after she said it made it clear she hadn’t meant it. He understood what she was trying to say, though.

To think that someone like her could ever love him felt egotistical, but he felt like she did, at least in her own way. She’d lived a long time; he could tell without even voicing the question. For her to mourn a mere eight years spoke volumes to him.

The first year of college was rough. His family liked to tell him it was rough for everyone, being away from _home_ for the first time. But he was miserable, more so than the typical freshman. He could still hear the forest calling to him, it had never stopped after all these years. The pull on him was insistent, never ending, almost begging. It made him sob sometimes at night, how _sad_ it sounded. He’d never imagined guilt could feel like vines strangling you.

***

His bags had barely touched the floor of his bedroom before he was slipping out of his window like he was a teenager again. His shoes dug into the ground as he fought to not run straight into the forest. Once he crossed the tree line, he let out a breath feeling overwhelmed by the rush of emotions that came over him, flying by too fast for him to even identify them all.

His hand gripped at a tree as his chest shook and he tried to get his breathing under control. A deer came up beside him, nuzzling him with her nose into his side. He laughed, feeling his eyes water as he looked down at her. His hands came to her fur and she happily leaned into him for a moment and then, walked away from him. He looked after her confused and then, she turned her head back to him. He had long stopped questioning the forest and simply nodded, falling into step beside her.

He’d already known where she was leading him but still felt his breath catch when he reached the small field. The deer left his side and he let his feet carry him towards the middle of the field.

She looked up at him with a smile, beautiful surrounded by the flowers she adored. It was like she was one herself. She rose up and waited patiently for him to reach her.

When he did, he didn’t think before reaching out and wrapping arms around her. She was still as he pulled her close and breathed in her earthy scent. But then, he felt her arms hug him to her as she leaned her head against his. Shikamaru pressed his face into the warmth of her neck.

She didn’t say anything as she held him, her nails running down his back soothingly. Vines tickled at his ankles and how he wished they would pull him into ground and plant him right there.

He eventually pulled away from her and she smiled, her voice warm. “We missed you.”

He laughed and felt tears run down his face. He brought his hand up his face in surprise, but she knocked his hand and wiped them away herself with the pads of her fingers. She asked him in understanding, “It was hard, wasn’t it?”

He nodded and she pulled him back to her body. He felt like the wind around her wrapped itself around him along with her arms.

***

His parents were worried about him. They kept giving him odd looks when he would walk out the back door and towards the forest every morning. His father asked him about potential jobs in town he could get. His mother tried to coerce him into staying home more.

But he couldn’t.

He only had so much time and it went by so quickly.

It was a few days before he had to leave, and they were lying under a cherry blossom tree. He couldn’t be sure, but he felt like it was the same one from when he was eight and she teased him about always lying around. Their heads were pillowed on their arms as they faced each other and Shikamaru’s eyes traced the lines in her skin, how the sunlight danced across it lovingly.

“Shikamaru.”

She gave him a confused look and he told her with his heart racing, “That’s my name.”

She smiled sadly at him and said quietly, “Shikamaru, I’ve told you before, but I am no fae. I cannot take your name from you or kidnap you to keep you here forever against your will.”

“You could, though, couldn’t you?” He felt himself ask the question as he searched her eyes, a green that ran deeper than lake.

She huffed and told him, “I will _not_ keep you here against your will.”

He closed his eyes, wondering what he had been thinking. Her voice was more comforting when she spoke again, and it felt like the grass curled against him. “I won’t take that decision from you. It means nothings if I do.”

He felt like there was more to her words, hidden meanings stitched into the backs of them. She always knew more than he did, more than she said on the surface.

She watched him leave hours later with one last smile.

“Call me Sakura.”

***

The next year went by even slower and Shikamaru pointlessly looked at train rides to his home town. They were too expensive and with all the travel time, he wouldn’t even be there very long before he had to come back. It was tempting though.

Especially in the spring. He watched as leaves grew on the trees, as birds returned to their nest, as flowers bloomed by the pathways to his classes. There was a cherry blossom tree near his dorm, and he didn’t go to class for a week after the pinks bloomed to life.

He wanted to be _home_. To watch _his_ forest come to back to life. The animals drinking from the water and picking berries from the bushes. Deer grazing in the sunlight.

He woke from a dream full of colors, of grass and petals. He felt that same tug from the forest and had to muffle a broken sob into his pillow.

This didn’t feel right.

_He didn’t belong here._

***

He kissed her when he saw her again. Her cheeks were warm with pink where he held them in his hands, her eyes fluttering shut as she parted her lips for him. It had been on instinct, on a drive for comfort and a feeling of belonging. Her arms were around him and he felt the wind pick up to play with her hair.

When he broke away from her, everything caught up to him and he looked at her dazed. “You kissed me back.”

She laughed and his memory of the sound had nothing on the real thing. “Did you not want me to?”

“I just – “ He looked off to the side, away from her smiling face. “Aren’t I like – how can I be of any significance to you?”

She turned his face back to her and planted a sweet kiss on his lips. “My dear, you are so much more than you believe yourself to be.”

His chest shook and he looked at her helplessly. “But what does that _mean_ , Sakura?”

She shook her head, a sad look crossing her face before she smiled. “I can’t tell you.”

He sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. She told him in a soft voice, “You’ll realize it soon enough.”

***

Something felt broken inside of him as he looked down at the test on the desk. It didn’t matter that he knew all the answers. It didn’t even matter that this decided his grade for the class.

Shikamaru watched as his pen clattered to the table as he came to a decision.

There were quiet whispers around him as he stood up and slung his backpack over his shoulder. He heard the professor call out to him, but he didn’t pause as he continued walking towards the door.

They were a sorry excuse for goodbye letters. Runaway letters from a twenty-year-old. But he had to leave them _something_. He’d included the most important parts, that he loved them, that he wished he could be someone else, but he wasn’t.

He left them on the kitchen counter in the dead of night. They didn’t even know he was there, thinking he was still at university and hadn’t spent all day on a train to get here.

He wondered if they’d know where he’d gone.

He felt like they would.

***

“It’s still Winter?” The words were the first to fall from her lips when he found her by a stream. Her eyes were wide, and he felt like she already knew.

He walked towards her, his heart pounding in his chest as he smiled at her. “I know.”

She raised an eyebrow at him but still welcomed him into her arms, an affectionate kiss pressed into his lips. He told her simply, breathing out, “I’m here to stay.”

Her eyes were on his, watching him closely. “To stay?”

He nodded and didn’t say more as he stared into her eyes. That lovely shade of green glossed over as her smile widened and she checked, “You’re sure?”

“I belong here.” He didn’t phrase it like a question because it wasn’t. He knew. He could feel it.

“It is your forest,” she replied back, her voice a whisper between them.

“I know.”

She kissed him, throwing her arms around him and it felt deeper than anything before. They fell to the ground, collapsing against the earth as they sunk into it. Vines wrapped around them lovingly and Shikamaru was surprised it took him so long to realize it.

That it had been him all along. His vines reaching out for her, his water rushing around her legs soothingly, his wind dancing with her hair. His nature worshipping her.


End file.
